Home Improvement

Tim Allen Grunts His Way to the Bank

Home Improvement, the sitcom starring popular comedian and former cocaine smuggler Tim Allen, was a mainstay in my household during the majority of its 8 year run. It is the story of a every-man television host of a home improvement (GET IT!??!?!) show trying to retain his masculinity in a household with his wife and three young children. It was never a great show, or barely a good one, but I still have fond memories of wondering what kind of deformity plagued Wilson that kept the cameras from showing his full face.

First Line Ever Said on Home Improvement: 

Lisa (the Tool Time girl)- "Binford Tools is proud to present Tim 'The Toolman' Taylor!"

Last Line Ever Said on Home Improvement:

Jill, speaking to Tim with their house on a boat crossing a river- "I didn't know a tugboat can go this fast."

Tim- "It can when it's got more power! GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT"

Pilot

Airdate: September 17th, 1991

The pilot starts off with Tim trying to get Jill and kids to watch Tool Time, but they show little interest. This seems somewhat understandable under the circumstances; did Mr. Rogers try to force his family to sit down and watch his show every week?

On Tool Time, Tim makes a joke about butt cracks being visible when wearing a tool belt. This is the level of comedy the writers were striving for. The project for the episode of the show within a show is to drill a hole through a door.  Al brings out a drill, but Tim is way too masculine for that pussy shit, so he gets a drill that REAL men would use!

Then He Grunted

He then breaks into what I can only assume is a bit from his old stand up act from which the show is based.  The bit is about his nagging and insufferable wife always yelling at him to keep it quiet, which leads me to question why he was so excited about getting his wife to sit down and watch the show in the first place.

On the couch, Jill hears the television and starts to complain about what he was saying, but Tim gets his way out of it by explaining that he meant "every wife but you", and they start canoodling on the couch until they hear a noise from outside. Their middle son, Randy, was trying to lynch his brother on the jungle gym.

Randy needs to work on his knot skills

After Tim breaks up the scuffle, Tim tells Jill that he is going to Sears, but had forgotten that he had agreed to watch the kids while Jill goes to a job interview. 

UH OH!

If there's one thing I know about Tim, it's that he LOVES fixing shit. Before Jill leaves on the interview, he notices how UNMANLY the dishwasher was and takes it upon himself to "fix" it, even after Jill tells him explicitly not to at least 3 times. Also, before Jill leaves, she grabs Tim's ass and they grunt back and forth with one another.

What a naughty boy

As soon as Jill leaves, we get our first wise meeting from Wilson, whose monologue pretty well encapsulates the themes of the show concerning parenting: "A lot of men feel lost and confused. You see Tim, the industrial revolution took the adult male out of the home, boys were left without an older man to teach them how to be men. We need to get back to something more primitive and atavistic."  Tim's response to this sentiment is to grunt and ask how atavistic is spelled.

Seriously. He grunts A LOT in this show

After receiving Wilson's sage advice, Tim recruits the boys to help him install a new compressor on the dishwasher. Randy and Zachary Ty Bryan (who isn't even referred to by name in this episode) want none of that business and run off, but Mark sticks around. Before starting to work on the dishwasher, they both take their shirts off and grunt at each other.

People in the audience clapped when Tim took his shirt off

After further proving their masculinity, the work finally begins on the dishwasher. The first part of the job is to turn off the power, but Tim hilariously forgot which fuse switch is for the kitchen!  Unsurprisingly, Tim then shocks himself and looks a fool once again. 

I've always remembered a rather large amount of special effects work on this show, and the pilot is no exception. Every single episode seemed to have at least one pretty big stunt on it,and it must have worked for what audiences were looking for at the time, because it never went away. 

After the commercial break, a now-clothed Tim and Mark are sitting in the dining area when the phone rings. It turns out that Jill didn't get her job and it's up to Tim to break the news to her after she gets back from her interview. Jill soon gets back, and is sure that she nailed the interview. Before Tim gets a chance to crush her dreams, she notices some grease on his hand and finds out about the new dishwasher. He tries to impress her by turning it on and grunting, but in classical Home Improvement fashion, things go unexpectedly AWRY!

How's he going to grunt his way out of this one!?!?!?

The kids run down to check out what the noise was, and that little brat Mark spills the beans on the job rejection call that came earlier. Tim apologizes, but it is simply not enough for Jill. She wants to work and have life outside of the home, and knowing that Tim has enough money to cover for the entire family isn't her problem. She storms off in a tizzy.

Tim, now in the metaphorical dog house, goes to the one man who can help him in such times of darkness. 

The man, the myth, the legend

Tim tells Wilson what happened, and received some good ol' fashioned Wilson common sense of "listen to what your wife says to you". If we all had neighbors who said such blatantly obvious things, the world would be a much better place for everyone.

At the end of the episode, on the set of Tool Time, Tim has a monologue which explains to the audience the lesson he learned in this week's episode. It seems that this feature was going to be a recurring theme, but it was probably dropped soon after the pilot for being way too obvious. The camera pulls back to the Taylor household as Jill watches his apology and all is forgiven until next week.

There is a tag at the end of the episode in which Jill leads Tim to the garage with the temptation of sex in the back of the car, only to lock him in there when he gets naked so that she can call an actual repairman to fix the dishwasher. And in case you thought one scene with a shirtless Tim Allen wasn't enough, he tries to get back into the house at the very end.

Why

All in all, this was a really mediocre episode of television. At least half of the punchlines were grunts and the plot was pretty boring. I haven't seen Home Improvement reruns for a few years, but I never remember it being this weak. I hope the finale fares better.

Best Lines:

Tim- "I think we ought to start today by spackling Al's butt crack shut!"

Tim- "It's either that, or sitting around a campfire telling each other stories naked"

Wilson- "The ancient Malaysians used turtle shells as an aphrodisiac"

Tim- "A turtle shell? Wouldn't that hurt putting it on?"

Tim- "GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT GRUNT"

The Long and Winding Road (Parts 1-3)

Airdate: May 25, 1999

After the really bad pilot, I'm happy to report that the three part finale of Home Improvement is actually pretty great. Almost everything I found horrible has been remedied and there are some surprisingly good jokes, and best of all, no shirtless Tim Allen. The title sequence has been totally redone, filled with all of the zany graphics that the show was popular for to segue in between scenes.

At the beginning of the big sendoff, Tim is angry that the new producer of his show is trying to turn it into a Jerry Springer knockoff, full of fighting couples and "woof woofs" a la The Arsenio Hall Show. Tim's frustration is understandable, and when he wants to quit over it I'm totally with him.

Al's wedding is coming up, so, like The Golden Girls, this show is signing off with the big "I do." He is frustrated about the wedding at first, but nothing really comes of it and it is just giving Al something to do for the first two thirds of the finale. Also, there is a new Tool Time girl, named Heidi, who is definitely a step up from Lisa.

Good golly miss Molly

So the Springer-esque Tool Time was predictable, but also pretty watchable. I was never actively groaning during it. The setup was that they get three guys who really love home repair, and their wives in the audience get upset and start fighting, eventually culminating in an on camera fist fight. During the fight, Tim gets kicked in the face as he is trying to cut to commercial.

Pow! Right in the kisser

Backstage, Tim makes it aware to the new ratings-craved producer that he hates the new format and quits, with Al and Heidi following suit, and they all agreed to do one last show as a service to the fans.  He also finds out that Bud has left the company, and I have absolutely no idea who that is. 

Back at home, Tim has to break the news to Jill, but she is on her way to a meeting with her superior, but stops to console him for a few minutes before she leaves.  At the meeting Jill receives a job offer in Bloomington Indiana, which I only remember because Indiana University is my alma mater. She finds out that it isn't a great paying position, but there is room for advancement after the move from Detroit to Indiana. She is apprehensive about the income and the move, so she tells her superior that she would talk it over with her husband.

Initially, Tim is very against the idea of moving to Indiana, because he'll lose his favorite mechanics and sports teams, but Jill's persistence swayed him to at least be open to the idea.  Tim heads out back to run things over with Wilson, like any good neighbor would. Wilson implores Tim to be more understanding of Jill and he finally concedes that a move to Indiana wouldn't be that bad.

These squirrel pelts are never mentioned. They are just there.

Tim is ready to try and sell the kids on the idea of Indiana, and he does so by bribing them with cheese pizza.  After they squabble about it for a few minutes, both of the kids admit that they are going to college soon and it doesn't really matter where their parents live, so that argument is over. Good idea on that pizza, Timbo. Jonathan Taylor Thomas is strangely absent in this episode as well (he only had a line or two in the pilot).

At the end of part 1, Tim is ready to take Mark and Brad to school because his own car is in the shop. After they leave, Jill reminisces about how old the kid's have gotten and second guesses the big move.  This is the beginning of a lot of reminiscing for these characters as we move on to part 2

awwwwwwww 

Part two of the finale is your standard clip show fare, where all the characters sit back and say things like "Remember that time when we...." and "We sure had some wild and crazy times....." before staring of into the distance. The clips were fine, but added nothing to the overall story. I'm sure it was a great fan service and had no major issues with it, there just isn't much to talk about. 

I think I've made it clear how annoying I found the grunting in the pilot, and I'm happy to say that there is almost none in the finale. It looks like the writers hated it just as much as I did. We didn't get our first grunt in this episode (aside from the ones in the theme song) until 17 minutes into the first episode. It was a lazy crutch of a bad writer, and I'm glad they got rid of it. 

At the top of part three, Al is still worried about his upcoming marriage as Heidi and Tim console him. Also, Heidi is pregnant, so even if the show wasn't going to end she probably would have been fired anyway. The hacky producer guy comes back and wants Tim to intentionally burn the television studio down in order to get better ratings, but Tim, Al, and Heidi don't want any of that business. During this discussion, Tim burns his hand on a waffle iron looking contraption and hurts himself. It ain't Woody Allen, but it's funny enough.

Yuk yuk yuk 

After the break, Jill is setting up for Al's wedding because there is nothing better than getting married at your Boss' suburban house. She is using the setting up as an excuse to get her own advice from Wilson as to what she should do about the big Indiana move. He tells her that he can't make that decision for her, and she must do it for herself. It was a pretty good scene, and I don't remember Jill having any other big scenes with Wilson during the course of the show. 

The final episode of Tool Time was really good to watch. The show seems to excel during these segments where they can get a little more absurd and cartoony, and they do exactly that this time. First, they announce that they aren't going to intentionally burn down the studio, but instead they are going to BRING IT DOWN WITH THE POWER OF ROCK, featuring their own ridiculous tool-themed band.

She's plays a hell of a saw

Tim then brings out what I'm assuming are recurring character that I've long forgot about, including Sparky Henderson, Eddie from Eddie's Body Shop, Felix Lyman, and Mario Andretti.

You can tell he's a racecar driver because of the steering wheel.

The band sings their final song while Al and Tim do a weird little dance number with blow torches as they set the studio on fire. Sadly, instead of a badass blaze, the fire is quickly put out by firemen. It was a good sendoff of one of the highlight segments of the show during it's prime, and we still haven't seen the last of Al, Heidi, or even the bad guy producer in this episode. 

Tim is outside to get some more neighborly advice, and suggests taking down the iconic fence that has always separated him and Wilson. It was a cool little segment, even though we didn't get to see Wilson's face. During this, of course there is more advice to be given. Tim reveals that the producer has offered him a substantial raise and creative control over his show if he decides to stay in Detroit and work on Tool Time. He has made an effort not to tell Jill in fear that it would sway her already shaky opinion about the move to Indiana. I wonder if she'll find out?

Of course she finds out. It's a dumb sitcom. While Tim is betting on whether Al will get married or not, the sleazy producer shows up in the kitchen to drop off a gift basket and runs into Jill. He lets her know of the new deal offered to Tim and she kicks him out, never to be seen from again. Jill suddenly has a new love and respect for Tim for not telling her about a potential job offer, which is oddly also the exact same thing she had a problem with in the pilot episode. But back to the big wedding.

She only has one line in the entire episode. I hope they set her up before the finale

The happy couple exchange vows, the funniest bit being that Al remembered an entire speech except the final word, which was "life". They do their I do's and kiss to a rapture of audience applause. During the reception, Jill sneaks Tim out to the garage in order to thank him for not telling him about his job offer, but she reconsiders the move for a final time. 

Tim's wedding toast to Al was pretty good, and Al's thank you speech was even better, because he only remembered to mention his wife at the very end.

In the final scene of the show, Jill and Tim are cleaning up the lawn after the wedding. They look back on their marriage (without the use of flashbacks) and talk about what they would have done differently. Jill said she would have done nothing differently, and Tim would have proposed to her in a place other than his car. He decides to take this opportunity to propose to Jill again, to which she says "I'm already married to the perfect guy" before they kiss. 

The fate of the Taylors is still up in the air, because they haven't made up their mind one way or the other about what to do next when the credits roll. Tim does say "Well, if we do decide to move, I think we can take the whole house", with a dream bubble appearing and the final joke being that they were going to load the entire house onto a truck, and later a boat, in order to get it wherever their destination would be.

"Sure it can go that fast, if it has MORE POWER!"

The final credits was just your average blooper reel, which I'm not that big of a fan of. 

BEST LINES:

Al- "I think I'm going through pre-maritial stress"

Tim- "Ah. PMS"

Mark- "I can't think of one good thing about Indiana"

Brad- "They have a town called French Lick!"

Tim- "Tool Time is going out like it came in"

Al- "With no audience?"

Tim- "Welcome to Tool Time. I'm Tim, and this is my assistant, Al 'be doing infomercials for a living' Borland"

Conclusion

After an awful pilot, I was surprisingly impressed by the finale. All of the characters, aside from Al's wife and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, were given some genuinely entertaining dialogue and the story never got dull during the two episodes of the show that actually had story. I can excuse the clip show part of the show, since most sitcoms try to tack it on as a special right before the finale, and the writers of Home Improvement at least tried to incorporate it into the show (albeit somewhat poorly). Overall, it was a pretty good 68 minutes of television.

What changed?

A lot of the jokes were much sharper in the finale, and the characters had more depth and things to care about than "LOOK AT HOW MUCH OF A MAN TIM IS!", especially Jill.  In the pilot, she was nothing but the nagging wife that Tim was mocking during Tool Time, but in this episode, the fate of the entire family hinges on her well thought out and planned decision making. Additionally, Al and Wilson were both given much more screen time as they had become more popular throughout the course of the series. 

What was the same?

Tim Allen will never be able to lose that machismo attitude that he has been culminating for the last 25 years, look at his current sitcom for an example. Even though I'm not the biggest fan of it, at least the writers were definitely able to make it more tolerable and keep the grunting to a minimum during the final episodes of this show. The special effects work that I mentioned in the pilot was still present and improved with a bigger budget, and the weird segues between scenes looked at much better than the original.


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